Having fun at Seven Stories

Seven Stories, in Newcastle, is the National Centre for Children's Books.  During the school holidays, with a houseful of  bored children and young people aged from 16 years to 10 months we decided to take a day out and go and explore.

Seven Stories, arranged on 7 floors of an old industrial building, is the perfect place to get children involved with books if they haven't tried them already and absolute heaven for everyone - including grown-ups - who loves books.

There are cosy places to settle down with your kids and read some of the thousands of books in the bookshop.

Bright window seats to sprawl on.

A very good selection of young adult fiction as well as books for teeny tots.

There are whole floors devoted to individual books where you walk through the pages.

This was the entrance to Alice

You could downsize for the Borrowers

pose on the film set for Lost and Found

climb into Cinderella's coach

and fool about with Angelina

Some of us were very silly indeed!

At the top there was a room where you could dress up as any kind of fairy tale you fancied

And there was someone to read us all a story

In the basement we coloured and cut out and were generally messy.

This was one of the best days out I've ever had - indulging my inner child (or entering my second childhood!) and the other children all enjoyed it too.  If only there were more book places like this for children and adults.

Seven Stories, Newcastle upon Tyne